


Belong

by persephine



Series: Infinite [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Potential Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 06:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14826761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephine/pseuds/persephine
Summary: You have me now.





	Belong

A knock on the door made Makoto tense for a moment and then rush around the counter, past the dining table and down three steps. She checked the eyehole, wondering who could be wanting to waste her time nearing midnight. 

 

Another knock just as her eyes focused in and she just opened it out of instinct. Akechi piled inside, nearly running into her.

 

“Goro! Did you forget your key?” she asked in surprise, holding onto his arm as she felt how heavy his body was. 

 

“Mhmm,” was all he could manage before kicking off his shoes and sauntering into the living room. 

 

Makoto watched him tiredly stumble, sitting on the arm of the couch as he unconventionally shrugged off his usually-immaculate blazer. He struggled with his tie for a second even though it came off like clockwork the moment he saw her many nights before. He paused for a second and left the damn thing around his neck before chucking his gloves off. Akechi struggled to breathe, eventually giving up and falling backwards into the couch. 

 

Makoto rushed over, asking no questions before checking his forehead and then pulse on his neck. She sighed a quiet sound of relief before kneeling next to his face. 

 

“Rough day?” she asked curiously.

 

She’d be lying if she said that she had never seen him like this, but it was often enough that it made her worry about his work-life balance and how little she got to see him before he conked out on the couch or holding her in his arms in bed, clothes dirty and all. He smelled like cigarette ash, and that’s when she knew.

 

“Did… Shido?” 

 

Makoto noticed the clench in his jaw loosening and then tightening again. Bingo. She had no comforting words for he’s heard them all. She didn’t necessarily want to hear it today either since she’d failed to finish up her casework fast enough and ended up staying later than she’d liked. Age got to the both of them, she assumed and how she longed to have a day off that coincided with her husband’s. She stood only when she saw him looking straight ahead at the clock on the wall. The hands were silent, though he knew when it struck midnight, it’d announce a new day, and he’d promptly go straight to bed in order to wake up in 6 hours. 

 

Insomnia began to plague him, she noticed, walking towards the kitchen. Even when he was so tired, the waves of his hair slick straight thanks to the rain, and the bags under his eyes darkening with every passing day, Makoto found herself wanting to make up for it even more. 

 

He motivated her to work hard, just like he did from afar in cram school. They’d always fight for the top what with him being so particular about his grades and appearance then. She had tamed him, eyes locking with his too often that one day he had enough. They’d been the only two walking out together when the building inevitably closed- typical. Always competing to see who could study the longest and hardest, only for the both of them to be kicked out by the janitor who also had Enough. Makoto was the only one embarrassed, knowing that time she’d spent tireless cramming would only go down the drain thanks to her lack of focus near the end of the day. Akechi wasn’t, gracefully grabbing his attaché case after settling the papers inside it, he walked past her. Show off. 

 

Makoto bowed quickly to the impatient janitor before rushing out as well. She’d bumped chests with Akechi who had been waiting for her outside. In the blink of an eye, his hands found her small waist and his lips crashed into hers. She calculated what part of this might have been an accident or a mistake until she heard him mumble her name against her mouth. Surely there was another Makoto in cram school, right? For fear of  _ his _ pride, she pushed him away. The look on his face wasn’t shock or despair, it’d been a look she had never seen before. His handsome face twisted in something she couldn’t recognize, but it sent a shiver down her spine and made her thighs and core clench in a mysterious way. 

 

“Took you long enough,” Makoto said, back in reality as she finished packing his lunch for tomorrow, “How did it go?”

 

“It went well,” he said from the other room after a few long moments, “Too well.”

 

Shutting the fridge close, she untied her apron and slid it over the hanging rack. 

 

“That sounds awful,” Makoto agreed sarcastically, walking back to sit on the couch. 

 

He didn’t shift when she sat down where his legs were, and then she turned her body to face him. 

 

“It’s almost as if two grown men were able to push past their pride and have a decent conversation, wouldn’t you say?” she asked with a secretive smile as she trailed her arms up his tense legs.

 

Akechi half-rolled his eyes, too tired for his wife’s told-you-so’s. She was right, though. Makoto nudged her small body between his legs, forcing one his own to slide over the couch to admit space for her. He was so tense that a gesture like this could barely crack a smirk out of him.

 

“There was something else,” he said quietly and serious now, only to then hesitate for several minutes.

 

Makoto waited patiently, her hands working on releasing him from his haphazard tie, and then undoing the buttons of his shirt. Her red eyes stared at his jaw, clenching and then unclenching every so often. Once she’d finished her ministrations on his buttons, she firmly mounted herself against his chest and leaned to kiss him on the cheek.

 

“He remembered my birthday,” he murmured, nuzzling against the crook of her neck. 

 

Makoto stopped to process what he had just said. In her silence, Akechi wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close and tight. 

 

“He remembered,” he whispered again.

 

Akechi knew their relationship hadn’t changed, and the slightest setback in Shido’s attempts to regain his trust as a father would soon mean nothing in a few days when he pushed him out of his thoughts like he usually did. It was nice to bask in it, though. Makoto heard him quiver, and she was certain his throat would be raw from swallowing and holding back sobs. She stayed quiet, cooing shushes as she held him close to her bosom. 

 

She slowly missed her window to say something like “you’re not weak if you cry” or “you have me now,” all of which she knew that he knew was true. With each passing day, the chances of a familial bond weakened, just as Akechi wanted. Though somewhere in his heart, Makoto knew he sought validation from the only person he could never get it from. Sometimes, she wondered if she meant anything to him at all given the rocky start to their rivalry, and then undeniable chemistry for one another. Makoto broke out of her thoughts when her husband’s forehead pressed against her shoulder, unveiling the glistening diamond on her hand. Neither one of them were flashy (that was a lie), but Akechi had ensured that the ring on her finger let wandering eyes know that she belonged to him. And then, the thoughts were no more. 

 

“I love you,” was all she said. 

 

Akechi felt those words vibrate from her body into his. The inflection of those words varied from person to person, but the way Makoto enunciated it was different. ‘I love you’ from Makoto sounded like home— like waking up to someone who loved him requitedly, like someone who would never leave no matter what. It sounded like she would love him, and only him, and that’s all he would need— and it was enough to convince him every time. 

 

She said it again.

 

“I love you,” and she pressed him closer to her as if to stop him from breathing and turn him to dust. 

 

This time it sounded like even with all the ways he’s wronged her and everyone else, she’d make him feel as if he could never wrong himself. It gave him confidence, love of which he could never dreamed of giving himself. 

 

He cracked. And just like he anticipated, the clock made the sound it made once a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. 

 

Makoto began to pull away, feeling Akechi’s fingers dig into her hips slightly in recoil from her movement, she stopped. He cried in silence, with no sobs. Tears soaked through her shirt as she held him. She let out a deep breath, unaware she’d been holding one in at all. Minutes passed and then the choked sobs came when he could no longer hide the hot tears and ragged breaths back. 

 

She knew it had nothing to do with Shido— it was an unfortunate coincidence. Akechi cried like this every year on his birthday. The first time she had encountered it, it had rained. Had he not been holding an umbrella and the clouds dissipated right as he muttered “I’m fine,” Makoto would have never caught it. Her face softened as he looked at her longingly, both afraid she had seen and hoping she did see. She’d dropped everything to jump into his arms, forgetting that the rain soaked through her shirt, the humidity forcing slick and sweat to run down her back, and forgetting that she’d hated Akechi up to that point, and surely he had hated her too. 

 

Ever since then, she had held him just like this, once a year. Ever since then, she chose to stay silent as he held back sobs until his throat was raw, as he blinked away tears that left his eyes dry and red. 

 

This year and every year forward, she’d let him know how much she loved him and how she’d never leave. She held him like he had never been held in his whole life. Makoto would make him feel how grateful, happy and lucky she was that he was born. She secretly believed in a fate that led her to him, that he’d been born just so she could meet him. When his sobs let up and his eyes inevitably dried. She pulled him off of her, kissing at the dry tears before pressing both hands to the side of his head. 

 

“Happy birthday, Goro,” she murmured, breath against his lips before claiming them as her own, “I’m so glad you were born.” 

 

She felt him smile before a small rumble came from his throat, and he returned her kiss in equal fervor. In the midst of his ‘I love yous’, she heard him say “thank you, I’m glad I was born too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t believe it’s not sex


End file.
